Profile

Arthur Isak Applbaum is Adams Professor of
Political Leadership and Democratic Values. His work on political
legitimacy, civil and official disobedience, and role morality has
appeared in journals such as Philosophy & Public Affairs,
Journal of the American Medical Association, Harvard Law Review,
Ethics, and Legal Theory. He is the author of
Ethics for Adversaries, a book about the morality of roles
in public and professional life. Applbaum has written about the
ethics of executioners and of butlers, and he has consulted to the
government about the ethics of spies. Recent articles include
“Legitimacy without the Duty to Obey” and “Forcing a People to Be
Free.” Applbaum recently completed a political philosophy novel for
teenagers and hopes to complete a book on political legitimacy for
adults soon. He was Acting Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center
for Ethics at Harvard, where he currently directs the undergraduate
fellowships in ethics. Applbaum established the core course in
political ethics at the Kennedy School, and also teaches the
political theory field seminar in the Government Department and a
freshman seminar, “What Happened in Montaigne’s Library on the
Night of October 23, 1587, and Why Should Political Philosophers
Care?” He has been a member of Harvard’s Advisory Committee on
Shareholder Responsibility and chairs the ethics advisory board of
a stem cell research foundation. Applbaum holds degrees from
Princeton and Harvard. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Jerusalem, a
Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard, and a Rockefeller Fellow at
Princeton University’s Center for Human Values.

Faculty of Arts &
Sciences Courses

Fall

Freshman
Seminar 48k What Happened in Montaigne's Library on the
Night of October 23, 1587, and Why Should Political Philosophers
Care?

Applbaum, Arthur Isak. "Political Legitimacy and Official
Discretion." Political Accountability: The Library of
Contemporary Essays in Political Theory and Public Policy. Ed.
Richard Bellamy and Antonino Palumbo. Ashgate, 2010, 39-73.

Applbaum, Arthur Isak. "Professional Detachment: The Executioner of
Paris." Public Ethics: The Library of Contemporary Political
Theory and Public Policy. Ed. Richard Bellamy and Antonino
Palumbo. Ashgate, 2010, 103-131.

Applbaum, Arthur Isak. Forcing a People to Be Free. Legitimacy,
Justice, and Public International Law. Ed. Lukas H. Meyer.
Cambridge University Press, 2009, 270-310.